Certain Prey Read Online Free PDF Page B

handkerchief.”
    “Covering her face,” Lucas said. “I don’t believe this shit,” Sloan said, looking down at Barbara Allen. “People don’t get hit.”
    “Not in Minneapolis,” Sherrill said. “Not by a pro,” said Black.
    Lucas scratched his chin and said, “But she did. I wonder why?”
    “Are you buyin’ in?” Sherrill asked. “Could be an interesting trip.”
    “Don’t have the time,” Lucas said. “I have the Otherness Commission.”
    “Maybe if we find the shooter, we could get her to kill the commission.”
    “They’re not killable,” Lucas said gloomily. “They come straight from hell.”
    “We’ll keep you updated,” Sherrill said. “Do that.” Lucas shook his head, and looked back down at the cooling body. And he said, aloud, again, “I wonder why .”

THREE

    Barbara Allen was killed a month to the day after Carmel Loan took out the contract on her. When word of the murder swept through the firm, Carmel immediately told herself that she had nothing to do with it. She’d made the arrangement so long ago that it hardly counted.
    Carmel learned of the killing as she sat reading the deposition of a late-night dog-walker who claimed that he saw Rockwell Miller—her client—go into the back of his failing steak house with a five-gallon can of gasoline. The prosecution would argue that it was the same gas can found by the arson squad in the shambles of the restaurant’s basement. The fire had been so hot that it had melted the fire extinguishers in the kitchen.
    Carmel was looking for what she called a peel. If she could get her fingernails under some aspect of a story, or some aspect of a witness, she could peel the testimony back and damage the witness’s credibility. She’d begun to think that she could peel the dog-walker. He was divorced, and carried two convictions for domestic assault, which hurt any witness if there were enough women on the jury. She could get the women, all right. The problem was getting the assault conviction before the jury, since the average judge might mistakenly consider it irrelevant.
    The dog-walker lived near the restaurant and knew the restaurant owner by sight. Had the dog-walker and his ex-wife ever eaten at the restaurant? Had they ever had an argument in the restaurant, when they were breaking up? Might the dog-walker have bad feelings about the restaurant, or its owner, even if they were unconscious?
    It was all bullshit, but if she could implicitly ask, “Can you believe the testimony of an admitted brutal wife-beater?” of twelve women good and true . . . That would be a definite peel.
    She was dialing her client when her secretary stuck her head into Carmel’s office, unannounced, and asked, “Did you hear about Hale Allen’s wife?”
    Carmel’s heart jumped into her throat, and she dropped the phone back on its base. “No, what?” she asked. She was one of the top three defense attorneys in the Twin Cities, and her face showed all the emotion of a woman who has been asked the outside temperature.
    “She’s been killed. Murdered.” The secretary couldn’t quite keep the relish out of her voice. “In a downtown parking garage. The police are saying it was a professional assassination. Like a mob hit.”
    Carmel hushed her voice, while letting the natural interest-show through. “Barbara Allen?”
    The secretary stepped in and let the door close behind her. “Jane Roberts said the cops came and got Hale, and they rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. She was already dead.”
    “Oh my God, the poor woman.” Carmel’s hand went to her throat. And she thought: I didn’t do this. And she also thought: I was sitting right here, where everybody could see me.
    “We’re thinking we should get some money together and send some flowers,” the secretary said.
    “Do that: that’s a good idea,” Carmel said. She found her purse beside her desk, and dug inside. “I’ll start it with a hundred.” She rolled the cash out